In new escalation, China demands to control air space over Japan’s Senkaku islands

Egypt expels Turkey’s ambassador, Turkey retaliates

Erdogan on Saturday gives the four-finger salute used by Muslim Brotherhood supporters (AFP)

Saying that Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is meddlingin Egypt’s affairs, Egypt announced on Saturday that is expellingTurkey’s ambassador. Relations between Turkey and Egypt have beenextremely tense since the July 3 ouster of the Muslim Brotherhoodgovernment of president Mohamed Morsi, with whom Erdogan had a close,cordial relationship. Egypt has frequently complained about Erdogan’srepeated statements harshly criticizing Egypt’s current government,and apparently Egypt finally decided it had had enough. According toEgypt’s foreign ministry:

“[The Turkish] leadership has persisted in itsunacceptable and unjustified positions by trying to turn theinternational community against Egyptian interests and … bymaking statements that can only be described as an offense to thepopular will. …

We decided to withdraw our ambassador from Turkey and summon theTurkish ambassador in Cairo to inform him he is persona non grataand ask him to leave the country. …

The people and government of Egypt appreciate the people ofTurkey. However, they hold the Turkish government responsible fortaking ties between the two nations so far [that] such procedureshave to be taken.”

Russia’s Putin scores a victory over the EU in Ukraine

Fresh from major political victories in Syria, resulting in thehumiliation of the United States, Russia’s president Vladimir Putinhas scored a major political victory over the European Union inUkraine. Just a week before Ukraine was to have signed a major tradeagreement with the European Union, Ukraine bowed to enormous pressure,bordering on extortion, from Putin, and ended negotiations. Accordingto Vice Prime Minister Yuri Boiko:

“We were not convinced that the losses in ourcommercial relations with Russia – which we’ve been suffering overthe last four months – would be balanced by the future sales ofour products in European markets.”

The government’s surprise reversal, after months of negotiations andpromises, is infuriating the opposition. Relations within Ukraine arebitter, since the population of eastern Ukraine are mostly ethnicRussians, about 17% of the population, while western Ukraine ispopulated mostly by ethnic Ukrainians, about 78%, and thiscapitulation to the Russians is provoking protests, though notsufficiently large protests to continue negotiations with the EU.Kyiv Post and Bloomberg

Ukrainians on Saturday commemorated the 80th anniversary of theHolodomor, the 1932-33 genocidal famine that killed as many as 10million people. Russia’s dictator Josef Stalin, wanting to starve theUkrainian peasants into submission to the Communist party, sendbrigades of Communist Party activists swept through the villages andtook everything that was edible. Stalin closed the borders in anattempt to keep the genocide secret, but details are known thanks toone journalist, Gareth Jones, who risked his life to report first-handon what was happening. (See “UK honors the journalist who documented Stalin’s man-made 1932-33 famine in Ukraine” from 2009.)

According to one survivor:

“The brigades took all the wheat, barley – everything- so we had nothing left. Even beans that people had set asidejust in case. The brigades crawled everywhere and tookeverything. People had nothing left to do but die.”

Russia objects to the “genocide” label, and that the Holodomor was notintentional. BBC and Kyiv Post

In new escalation, China demands to control air space over Japan’s Senkaku islands

Map of China’s East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (BBC)

In a major escalation of tensions with Japan, China has announced thecreation of an “East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone,” whichsays that China’s Ministry of National Defense will haveadministrative responsibility for the entire East China Sea region,including the Senkaku/Diaoyu islands that have historically belongedto Japan. According to the announcement:

“[All] aircraft flying in the East China Sea AirDefense Identification Zone should follow the instructions of the[Ministry of National Defense]. …

China’s armed forces will adopt defensive emergency measures torespond to aircraft that do not cooperate in the identification orrefuse to follow the instructions.”

However, the ministry add, “Normal flights by international air linersin the East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone will not beaffected in any way.”

China has repeatedly demanded to take sovereignty over regions of theSouth China Sea and East China Sea that have historically belonged toother nations, and has threatened to use its vast military poweragainst anyone who disagrees. The reason is that China wants to takecontrol of the vast oil and gas resources in these regions. Inparticular, a naval confrontation of some kind around theSenkaku/Diaoyu islands between Chinese and Japanese warships has beenalmost a daily occurrence for over a year. Now, China is escalatingits level of confrontation to air power as well. BBC and The Diplomat